"Professor David S. Landes takes a historic approach to the analysis of the distribution of wealth in this landmark study of world economics. Landes argues that the key to today's disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world stems directly from the industrial revolution, in which some countries made the leap to industrialization and became fabulously rich, while other countries failed to adapt and remained poor. Why some countries were able to industrialize and others weren't has been the subject of much heated debate over the decades; climate, natural resources, and geography have all been put forward as explanations--and are all brushed aside by Landes in favor of his own controversial theory: that the ability to effect an industrial revolution is dependent on certain cultural traits, without which industrialization is impossible to sustain. Landes contrasts the characteristics of successfully industrialized nations--work, thrift, honesty, patience, and tenacity--with those of nonindustrial countries, arguing that until these values are internalized by all nations, the gulf between the rich and poor will continue to grow." Publisher's Review

Originally published: New York : W.W. Norton, 1998. With a new epilogue for the paperback edition. Includes maps of: Ocean Currents around the World; Prevailing Winds around the World, January Pattern; Prevailing Winds, June Pattern; Caribbean and Its Continental Borders; Trade Routes in the Eastern Seas; Southeast Asia and the Indonesian Archipelago; Britain on the Way to Industrial Revolution; Industrializing Europe, c. 1850; South American after Independence; Late Ming and Early Qiing China, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Japan and Korea, c. 1850 - the End of Tokugawa and Beginning of Meiji.

1.Nature's inequalities -- 2. Answers to geography : Europe and China -- 3. European exceptionalism : a different path -- 4. The invention of invention -- 5. The great opening -- 6. Eastward ho -- 7. From discoveries to empire -- 8. Bittersweet Isles -- 9. Empire in the East -- 10. For love of gain -- 11. Golconda -- 12. Winners and losers : the balance sheet of empire -- 13. The nature of industrial revolution -- 14. Why Europe : why then? -- 15. Britain and the others -- 16. Pursuit of Albion -- 17. You need money to make money -- 18. The wealth of knowledge -- 19. Frontiers -- 20. The South American way -- 21. Celestial empire : stasis and retreat -- 22. Japan : and the last shall be first -- 23. The Meiji restoration -- 24. History gone wrong -- 25. Empire and after -- 26. Loss of leadership -- 27. Winners and -- 28. Losers -- 29. How did we get here : where are we going?